Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

Hey shroomerites.. Heres a shot of the notorious dirt gym in its natural habitat found today. These ones were literally right next to a road near my house in greener grass than normal. Perhaps it was sod or bermuda. The stems on these are beefy! All of you in central FL look out for these!

Next, a lil over thirty gram yield off of a pile of pine that I put together, hoping it would do something like this. All of the pine I put in the pile had already produced at some point. Red bruising on the caps? Maybe the red is spore deposits? Notice the very colorful, bluing cap. Are they penetrans?

@OP: interesting collection; I'm not familiar with the 'dirt gym', what species are they supposed to be? Is there no buried wood underneath that soil? Did you spore print them? Do you have experience with this species?

@OP: interesting collection; I'm not familiar with the 'dirt gym', what species are they supposed to be? Is there no buried wood underneath that soil? Did you spore print them? Do you have experience with this species?

g. penetrans sounds like a decent guess for the second collection.

Lol @ that guy

I would suspect there were old trees or something in that area. Or dead roots of trees nearby that went out seeking water/nutrients. Gotta be some lignin in that substrate... I think they could be G. luteoviridis, or perhaps even G. aeruginosus. They look almost identical to the aeruginosus I find, but the stems just aren't as beefy. I find mine in mulch piles tho, so that could account for beefier specimens. @ OP Looks like you got enough for a nice dose there!

I attempted to bioessay through a tea but it tasted extremely bad and it didn't work.. Probably because the tea was prepared wrong though. I do look forward to having a good experience from gyms one day, however. Also, check some of my other threads, dirt gyms pop up abundantly in my area. Its almost always a mixture of dirt, sand, and grass. No wood!!! Well, seemingly. Dirt gyms does sound pretty funny.. Like some reggie or something haha.

Quote:Seann said:I attempted to bioessay through a tea but it tasted extremely bad and it didn't work.. Probably because the tea was prepared wrong though. I do look forward to having a good experience from gyms one day, however. Also, check some of my other threads, dirt gyms pop up abundantly in my area. Its almost always a mixture of dirt, sand, and grass. No wood!!! Well, seemingly. Dirt gyms does sound pretty funny.. Like some reggie or something haha.

There's gotta be some wood in that soil... Dig up a cluster sometime and see if they're all attached to a chunk of something.

Possibly.. But I doubt it, honestly. I've found many of these specimens growing directly from sand especially. As a matter of fact, today there was a small cluster of three that were old and eaten, but i pulled them and they were all attached to a small spherical ball of sand, but it was almost a clay material due to mycelium maybe?

Quote:Seann said:I also believe that out of all the sand/dirt gyms ive found so far, their was at least two different species of them.

Just take good note of the habitat, what tree species are nearby, type of grass, etc. Then get a good shot of the overall habitat for us (without giving away your spot) so we can see the slope of the land if any, how open the lighting situation is. Then photograph the mushrooms very well. Separate what you think to be the distinct species, and take good photos in different lighting showing the cap, gills, stipe, etc from near and far distances. Spore print your finds, and if someone is interested, they might want to scope a few samples. Just do good science!

Will do, thanks for the informative post! Part of the excitement of hunting shrooms for me is potentially finding undiscovered species as well as contributing to everyone's overall knowledge. I have never bioessayed the dirt gyms but I will one day, I feel that some are quite potent. Check my 2013 finds thread to see some other sand/dirt finds.

Quote:Seann said:Will do, thanks for the informative post! Part of the excitement of hunting shrooms for me is potentially finding undiscovered species as well as contributing to everyone's overall knowledge. I have never bioessayed the dirt gyms but I will one day, I feel that some are quite potent. Check my 2013 finds thread to see some other sand/dirt finds.

What makes you think they're potent? Just the bruising reaction? That's hardly an indication of potency with gyms... Some of the more active species don't really bruise that readily.

Hmm I see, yes I was basing that thought off of how vigorously they bruise. Deep purple or just dark shades are what show up almost instantly, but more color comes out as time goes by. For example, this shroom was also found in nice grass on the side of the road and turned this color after 1 day. Blue and green bruising are some of the less common colors it seems. But again, informative post, thank you.

Quote:Seann said:Hmm I see, yes I was basing that thought off of how vigorously they bruise. Deep purple or just dark shades are what show up almost instantly, but more color comes out as time goes by. For example, this shroom was also found in nice grass on the side of the road and turned this color after 1 day. Blue and green bruising are some of the less common colors it seems. But again, informative post, thank you.

Another thing to remember, blue/green bruising is an indication of how potent the mushroom was. Bruising means that the alkaloids are oxidizing. So if you find a patch of mushrooms, and you beat one up and it bruises heavily, try not to damage the rest of the mushrooms. Use one as an indicator, but otherwise handle them all delicately. Also if you are collecting samples for study, in the case that someone wants to scope or sequence them, you should take great care to dry them thoroughly and as quickly as possible without heat. I prefer fanning/desiccant. Then seal them airtight and keep out of light.

Here is that small colony fruiting from a ball of sand, breaking it apart only revealed more sand and shroom pieces.

Also I need an ID on these specimens also fruiting from sand.. I believe them to be gymnopilus but am not fully sure, haven't really seen anything like these yet. Caps were relatively smooth and a veil remnant was not apparent.

Edit: I see you mention dark bruising...I'm not experienced with Gyms but from what I know the active species will bruise green/blue. Not red or purple or any other dark shades. Have you really not checked the spore print for any of your "gyms"?

No, I usually just find and photograph them for identification. Most gyms I find DO release heavy orange spore deposits. These ones in particular did not have such obvious spore deposits. How do you know that active species of gyms will not bruise dark shades, purple or red? Also, anything seems possible with where these gyms have been growing lately. Any input on the ID of the shroom in question?